Liveblog: Latest London disturbances

0001: London is staying quiet tonight and we are going to bed before 5am, hurrah! Thanks to all who’ve supported us and sent us updates, we do appreciate it. Thanks for all donations to the beer fund – we may wander down to a Central London pub at some point soon and get our round in.😉 Extra pennies muchly appreciated, your support really means a lot to all of us – we aren’t paid for this.

For those of you listening to the radio tomorrow morning, Gaz will be appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live at about 0840ish to discuss the rioting.

We’ll leave with this from Roger in the comments:

“This should be an example to the looters: 3 days of hard work and people start delivering beer to your door! No need to burn anything, break anything, attack anybody, steal anything – or break any laws whatsoever! Just work hard and people give you beer!”

“Hillingdon borough has remained a safe and secure area over the last 24 hours and together with our partners we congratulate our many communities for the solidarity and strength they have shown in preventing the violence that has been elsewhere from coming to our borough.”

Congratulations XH – keep it up!

2204: The three men who had a car driven at them in Dudley, Birmingham, have all died. One of them apparently died on the scene.

2202: BBC 5 Live’s man on the ground is reporting that Eltham has calmed down now. Seems that a group of people chucked various objects at police and were then dispersed. Westminster magistrates’ court is staying open all night, reports Sky News.

2159: Police telling a large group of people to go home in Enfield.

2158: Strong police presence in North Finchley, reports of something happening there. Reports that there is a fire in Tottenham, we’re checking that now.

2154: North Wales Police are reportedly on the scene in Eltham. The Met’s mutual aid system really is working well!

2153: Staines is nice and quiet, says our man over there. Meanwhile I’ve opened the first can of many energy drinks tonight!

2152: The man who was shot dead in Croydon yesterday has been named as Trevor Ellis, LBC reports.

2151: Bush Hill Park station is quite near to the troubles reported at the retail park just east of the town centre.

2144: Eltham latest is that police are outnumbering the people causing trouble – about 80 police are present.

2141: Catford is reported to be quiet. Checking rumours from Enfield now, but initial reports there say there is a heavy police presence keeping things calm. Reportedly 50+ riot vans in Eltham area now.

2140: Eltham High Street is closed – the crowd there is now reportedly dispersing. Seems to have been a flash rather than a riot. Keeping tabs on the situation.

2136: Eltham latest – police have been bottled by a large group but situation is mostly under control, reports BBC 5 Live.

2134: Large numbers gathering in Eltham but no reports of clashes there just yet. Heavy police presence too. Meanwhile in Catford several reports are coming in of a disturbance there, we are confirming that now.

2126: Enough is happening to make us start up again – shame that, I was enjoying the Budweiser along with a Chinese takeaway…

We will be a few minutes getting this page up and running – my utmost respect to Xenia for keeping Twitter and Facebook going!

I am re blogging this, as i have done for the last two days, reffering everything back here. I also offer some opinions on my blog and twitter, will be quiet tonight though, busy. You guys are doing excellent work, shame there is never anything to report from Northampton.

Sorry to hear you’re having to work again tonight, Gaz. Hope you enjoyed those Buds, anyway. It’s too bad it took the police three or four days to decide to come out in force. Had they done it after the first night, it could have saved a lot of peoples’ property.

Nice work here mate, I don’t think you will be needing many Energy Drinks for tonight I think tonight and tomorrow will be quiet but I don’t know if you have seen this, I was reading some other news website and found this http://a.yfrog.com/img616/1580/v7jiq.jpg it’s about rioters meeting up on Friday, so stay tuned for Friday.

thanks for the updates! Just heard from a friend that people were at it again at our Eltham high street. I do not have sky news and could not find information anywhere else so thank you.
I could here lots of Helicopters and sirens but all seems a bit calmer now. Let’s hope it is the end of it!

As much I appreciate your selfless and hard work, I’m going to have to agree with Jack Hackett (#32). What was said may come across as insensitive to others and I’m sure that’s certainly not what you intend, especially during what’s happening as of late.
Regardless, thank you very much for your hard work and I’m eagerly following any updates.🙂

Thanks for all your great work guys!! I’m English but I now live in New Zealand. While all my family in England are sleeping It’s been very reassuring to be able to follow what’s going on in my home town (even though I am supposed to be working). Just wanted you to know it’s not just the people in England that your updates are helping!!

I have posted my feelings on all this on other sites, with no feedback, but thats cool, il share here too anyway.

And il try to cover everything in short as possible.

this aint about race, religion, poverty or whatever else you wanna blame all this on, its very simple.

i have lived in london all my life, and grown up in rough areas, and gone to tough schools, and had my fair share of stuff to deal with, and lucky escapes from potential dangerous situations, as have others.

the youth of today are far different than the ones when i left school around 1993, it was very rare to hear about people getting stabbed at school, and while that kind of violence did happen, along with gun related crime etc, it was quite rare, and usually if you didnt go looking for it, and run in circles that you knew were trouble it never really affected you, nowadays at schools they dont even report all the incidents that happen, and beating, drugs, stabbing etc, happen very frequently at schools, its even more common on the streets, and most people have become conditioned to news we hear, though TV and friends and family when we hear about people getting stabbed, mugged, drugs, guns the lot.

i wont say where i live, its a rough north london estate, and like most estates etc we have our gang of kids that terrorise the shops, and people around here, not all people, but the people who are vulnerable and who are in fear.

the main road thats near me, regulrly has troubles with these kids, not much different to these riots, just on a small scale, running in, trashing the store, beating up the shop keepers, smashing their windows in etc etc, and also like the riots, they take pleasure in taunting the police on a regular basis, then disppearing into the maze of back streets and alleys that they know all to well, even if the police catch them, with our present soft laws they dont care, and so it all continues.

their mentality like alot of others involved in these riots, as we have heard themselves say, is “i dont care” “if i want something, i take it” “i dont give a f&*k what people think” etc etc is thier general attitude to life.

these riots were basically a case where every body that is like that, thought if we all rise up at the same time they cant do a thing, and you know what, what the last several days have shown us, is that yes they can get away with it, and after this calms down, who will you say won?

dont try and tell me the police did, or anyone else.

these kids did, and they know they did.

and now they know this, do you think they wont come back for more??

of course they will.

i know this will upset some people, but in a way i was hoping the riots would continue, and sort of reverse physiology effect, if we the people wont stand up and demand a better life, and better, safer place to live in, then let these people cause the reaction thats needed to change things for the better, for us.

we have already seen how these criminals have been dealt with, 90% are under 18, so no jail terms, i dont need to tell you more about how SH%T our law system is.

now if there was more riots, it would really push the people and hopefully the government to make drastic changes in the law.

so if you steal, and its your second offence, 1-2 years jail.
if you do worse and beat up people or even worse, give them an even bigger sentence.

get more police on the streets instead of cutting them down.

build more jails to house them.

have a better reform system in place so the people who really do want to change their ways are supported.

i could say more but i think yo get the idea of what im saying.

nothing will change when all this calms down, and believe me it will happen again, only this time the people who do this, are more empowered in their attitude, and perspective on their already warped sense of society.

this sudden awareness on what these people are like, has always been there, for a while, but as long as its not you getting mugged, not you thats beaten up, or stabbed, then you just accept its a part of life and the world we live in.

I agree with most of this…apart from wanting to see the riots continue, I don’t agree with that because things could have gotten really drastically out of hand even more so than they did. Other than that though i think you are spot on.The police did not win. What i find really frustrating is that they could have won, if they were allowed to use force at the first riots at tottenham they could have dealt with the situation there and then and it never would of escalated. So on that front the do gooders who took the power away from the police are mostly responsible for the riots that followed. It only escalated because the gangs and kids saw that they could get away with it and then everybody else joined in from all walks of life cos they saw that there were already too many people doing it and the police were just letting them…..(everybody that doesn’t have morals that is).
These kids and gangs have done enough shopping for a few days and they aren’t stupid. Why would they carry on when the police presence is at its unsustainable highest level…they will wait until it calms down and then have another party. Aside from the situation in Tottenham which i cant comment on,this wasn’t an explosion of aggression due to any build up of frustration, or any sort of protest, this is now an attitude and way of life for A LOT of young people in London and has been for some time. The only difference is that this was done with extra bravado cos it happened all at once, the police were stretched and couldn’t do anything so it was magnified.
The root cause everybody is looking for, (aside from the gross inequality in the distribution of wealth which i cant see changing anytime soon unfortunately) it is largely the Governments fault for encouraging and helping broken families by giving extra benefits to people who are still immature and cant look after themselves let alone a child…but the more children they have, the more money they get and a guaranteed place to live!
It is not these kids fault they have been born into this situation, but unfortunately i don’t think there is much hope of them changing there attitudes once they have reached 13/14 unless you pull them out of there environment, for most of them at least. We can only look to getting it right in the future. I wont go into my thoughts on that now though.
As to your thoughts on more police well it would be nice but costs money and really isnt necessary…what we need is the police to be able to get tough and do what they need to do without being accused of brutality every 5 mins…I don’t worry about them having too much power, they wont get away with anything totally outrages in todays technological world they are always being watched, much more so than the criminals, cos they come in a blaze of noise and flashing lights. So i say…would the clueless people who argue against stronger enforcement measures for the police please F off! thank you.

Greetings from Alberta, Canada – excellent coverage, lads, far, far better and more thorough than the mainstream. What with my brother running a business in Battersea I was glued to your posts – keep up the great work (or not, if you know what I mean!)

InfoReader and Moses are right I agree with everything you said, it was a long time coming, I wonder if they will strike again in weeks, months, or years, who knows?
Also I read somewhere that this the young peoples equivalent of what the bankers did (I don’t agree with either btw) these kids cost the country abortion £150 million by now whilst the bankers cost us billions. People lost businesses and homes in both situations, so who is worse?